AutoMcD wrote:I've also considered bussing wire and gears.

You almost never want to put wire on the bus - it simply cannot be extracted from a belt fast enough for how it is consumed.

I hadn't even thought of that, but it is a great point. I was thinking more about replenishing the bots automatically from my assemblers whenever I take bots out of the network to move them to new outposts. But you're right, it can be a pain to find construction bots sometimes and it would be nice t...

The short answer is yes, combinators can be quite useful for this.

Take a look at Negative Root's video here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E8TsSM48Osc

He uses combinators to control oil-related parts of his factory.

Will roboports be connectable to the circuit and/or logistic networks in 0.13? Right now these have storage for bots and repair packs and yet neither of those are exposed to the logistic network and you cannot connect red or green wires to the roboport for a circuit network. I think it would be hand...

I'm pretty sure it is all about scale. If you have a gigantic factory with dozens of trains and stations then you might want more lanes for your rail lines to increase throughput. Watch your trains closely, if you see them waiting frequently at rail signals then that is a sign that your capacity is ...

One of the beautiful features of this game is that everything can be picked up and reused somewhere else. So you really shouldn't worry too much if you have a poor initial design or if you make some mistakes - you can always pick up the parts of your factory and rebuild them in a different configura...

They might be too close to the curve? If you mouse over the chain signals, do they cover both rails? I suspect this is the issue. Signals D and S should probably be shifted one square to the right so that they are only touching straight rail, likewise signals E and X might need to be moved 1 square...

I modified your images to show where you would want signals: http://imgur.com/a/NFbqt For your image of the station tracks, it looks like you want the trains to arrive and depart on the same single track, so I added signals accordingly. Your second image with the roundabout loop would need to swap t...

If your trains could go in either way then why not make them symmetrical, e.g. engine - full barrels - empties - full barrels - engine. Should solve the problem of not knowing where the full and empties are going to be. I used this method when I came across this exact same issue. I used 3 cargo wag...

Can I add trees in the map editor? I've figured every else out just fine but cannot find where to add trees. Yes, select the "Entities" editor from the top row (3rd from left button looks like an assembly machine), then in the Entities window below select the left-most tab (button looks l...

I think you're not talking about the "Restart Map" button in the options menu, but rather just picking up all your placed items and structures and clearing up a map right? If that is so, just keep in mind that a few things on your map will have changed: 1. Resource availability. If you min...

If your goal is to have a free flowing belt and any excess items go to storage, why not just have a bunch of inserters extract everything from the belt into storage at the very end of your line? I like your design, I'm not sure I get why it is necessary. Is there a particular reason why you want to ...

You must not have done a very good search, considering that what you just posted is already listed at the very top of the Frequently Suggested Ideas post that is stickied in this forum: https://forums.factorio.com/viewtopic.php?f=80&t=4806 Also, as a side note, reactors shouldn't produce polluti...

As for size fitting your largest train - this again is more relevant around junctions - you want the blocks just after junctions (in each exit direction) to be at least as big as your biggest train, so no train ends up blocking the junction. For breaking up straight runs it is less critical, as hav...

I think the loader concept that was brought up a couple Fun Friday Fact's ago may accomplish this for you, but apart from that I think there are enough ways to ensure items end up on both sides of a belt that I don't feel another type of inserter is needed. Here are some examples of how to use both ...

When you have a long rail line between stations or other intersections, is there an ideal way to segment the rail line into blocks? I'm talking about really long lines of empty land where there's no intersections or stops for the trains to worry about. It isn't entirely necessary to split the long l...

I don't see any rail or chain rail signals in your screenshot at all. You need these signals at every intersection of tracks. If you are unfamiliar with their use then I suggest you check out this train tutorial video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZiL7_vfJtQ

You make it sound like the editor is more complex and hard to use than it actually is. I opened it up and was able to make a workable map in just a minute or so (after a few map seed changes by trial and error). Take a look here: http://imgur.com/a/04bkz Sure it might take a bit longer if you really...

Use decider combinators for each condition and when true have them output the same signal to the smart inserter. I made up a quick mock up example here:
http://imgur.com/a/CrL7V

This should accomplish what you are looking for.

You can always screw around in the map editor. At the very least it lets you view the map enough to know if you like a given seed. You can regenerate over and over using different seeds until you find one you like then use that seed to make a game normally. Or you could use the editor to modify a ma...